Researchers from China say they have a solution that combines multiple new strategies and simultaneously inhibits growth of the primary tumour and tumour metastasis. Their work was published on May 31 in Small, a peer-reviewed journal that covers science at the nano and microscale.
The research is led by Shi Xiangyang and Cao Xueyan of the Shanghai Engineering Research Centre of Nano-Biomaterials and Regenerative Medicine at Donghua University in Shanghai. They have been focusing on using nano-biotechnology to diagnose and treat cancer for more than a decade.
The team built its “aircraft carrier” based on a polymer that resembles a tree’s branches and has a controllable shape and size and good biocompatibility. Using the polymer as a deck, the Donghua University researchers mounted other particles as “weapons” onto the carrier.
Shi and his team modified the surface of the polymer with targeting agent LyP-1 peptide, which can specifically recognise and bind to a protein that is abnormally overexpressed on various types of tumour cells, especially breast cancers. They said as a result, the nanoplatform could navigate and find its bomb target.
Then nanoparticles – including copper sulphide (CuS) and DMXAA, a drug that cuts tumour vascular cells – are incorporated in the cabin of the polymer as a weapon.
Each particle constitutes a different treatment method.
When exposed to near-infrared light, CuS nanoparticles generate heat that can destroy cancer cells through a process called photothermal therapy. The DMXAA induces the programmed death of tumour vascular cells, leading to necrosis of the tumour tissue.
One of the major strengths of the team’s work is the synergy between the different weapons aboard the “aircraft carrier”.
While CuS and DMXAA kill tumour cells in their own way, jointly they trigger the body’s immune system to fight the cancer by inducing immunogenic cell death and regulating immune responses.
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